


Snow Day Drabbles

by satb31



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: A little bit of everything, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Fluff, Drabble, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 07:55:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satb31/pseuds/satb31
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five drabbles written during the snowstorm that blanketed the Northeastern United States on 2 January 2013, based on a series of prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Drink Me

“Whoa, slow down, Ferre,” Grantaire said as he climbed onto the barstool next to Combeferre, noticing four empty bottles of beer in front of his friend – which was about three more than he usually consumed in an evening – plus a half-full bottle in his hand. “What’s the occasion?” he asked, flagging down the bartender, who knew Grantaire’s drink order without asking.

Combeferre stared at his bottle of beer, idly picking at the label and studiously avoiding Grantaire’s gaze. “No occasion,” he said flatly. “Just felt like not feeling anything for a while.”

Grantaire chortled and took a long gulp of his Scotch, enjoying the burn as it went down his throat. “Welcome to my world, friend,” he said, putting his hand on Combeferre’s shoulder.

Combeferre turned and looked at him, his ice blue eyes narrowing. “I’m just had it,” he said. “Tired of fighting and always losing out in the end. Tired of doing everything I can to try  
to make him happy and he’ll never fucking notice.”

Grantaire smiled wryly as he took a handful of peanuts and tossed them into his mouth. “That’s Enjolras for you. I’ve been fighting that fight for years. It’s a game you’ll never win, mate. Don’t even try.”

Combeferre turned away again and took a long swig of his beer. “Who said I was talking about Enjolras?” he said, a bitter chill in his voice.

Grantaire laughed nervously. “Who else would you be—”

Combeferre glared at him. “Who the fuck else would I be talking about?” he said coldly as he rose from his seat, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket and throwing a few bills on  
the bar.

“’Ferre, I—“ Grantaire was at an uncharacteristic loss for words.

“Never mind,” Combeferre said quietly, the veil of calm descending over him as quickly as it had lifted. “Have a good evening,” he said as he pushed past Grantaire and walked out of  
the bar.

Grantaire watched him depart, downing the rest of his Scotch while signaling for another – hoping that the brown liquor would help him forget that he was not the only one who wanted something he could probably never have.


	2. Amuse Me

“I’m sick,” Joly said as he wandered downstairs to the kitchen in his pajamas, where Bossuet was washing dishes, his voice strangled with phlegm.

“I’m sorry,” Bossuet said, turning to him and wiping his wet hands on a towel. “What can I do for you?”

“Tell me I’m not going to die,” Joly said, sitting down at the kitchen table and putting his head in his hands.

“You’re not going to die,” Bossuet said, pouring him a glass of orange juice and putting it in front of Joly to drink.

“Yes, I am,” Joly insisted as he took a drink.

“No, you are not,” Bossuet said, fetching a box of cold medicine out of the cabinet, popping two pills out of the foil wrapping and handing them to his friend. “At least, not today.”

“What’s that’s supposed to mean?” Joly asked, jerking his head up, his mouth twisting into a pout.

“It means the flu is not going to kill you,” Bossuet said, his tone reassuring as he sat down next to Joly. “I mean, there are so many other ways you could die. You could get hit by a truck—“

Joly nodded eagerly. “They drive like crazy around here.”

“Or a piano could fall on your head,” Bossuet suggested.

Joly laughed. “With your luck, that’s how you’ll probably go, mate,” he said.

Bossuet snorted. “Probably,” he admitted. “I mean, you’re probably more likely to be killed in the zombie apocalypse—“

“I worry about that all the time,” Joly confided, suddenly getting serious again. “I’ve been reading about mutations for my genetics class, and you know, it could happen someday, and—“

Bossuet sighed audibly. “I never should have let you watch that shitty Day of the Dead remake.”


	3. Break Me

Combeferre lights his cigarette and hands the case to Joly, watching his friend as he carefully rolled his own between his long graceful fingers. As he inhales deeply, he feels curiously light-headed from the nicotine.

Yet his heart is heavy.

Tomorrow’s battle is inevitable, he knows – it became inevitable as soon as the barricade was constructed – and some of these men will inevitably go to their deaths, as so many had already had in the cause of freedom.

Combeferre does not fear his own death, but he fears for his friends, who had had come to love these past few years. His was a quiet love – he was not the type of man to write romantic poetry about lost love, as his friend Prouvaire does.

Or as he did, he corrects himself, still not used to referring to Prouvaire in the past tense.

But if he were to write poetry, he knows who he would write it for. Of all of their friends, Joly has seen him at his weakest – he has watched as Combeferre worried about his anatomy exams, witnessed him vomiting in the corner the first time he saw a dead body. And to be fair, Combeferre has seen Joly at his weakest too – it was Combeferre who found him sitting in a hallway, head in his hands, his eyes filled with tears after he losing his first patient, a patient who died of an eminently treatable condition.

Combeferre would watch as Joly’s tears turned to rage.

And then he would watch how Joly’s rage turned him into a revolutionary.

At the time Combeferre was proud of his friend, happy to see him worrying about something other than his health or whether he will pass their next exam. But now he wishes he had never encouraged him to join this crusade – a crusade that looks more doomed by the hour. He fervently wants Joly to be back at his flat, tucked into his perfectly aligned bed, worrying about his pulse during the thunderstorm instead of worrying about how the rain has destroyed their gunpowder.

Yet here they are.

Joly has lit his cigarette now, and he leans up against Combeferre, silently smoking while looking up at the starless sky. Combeferre begins absently stroking Joly’s back, feeling every vertebra in his spine.

He hears a small sound from the back of Joly’s throat – a slight moan, maybe a whimper – Combeferre is not sure whether it is a cry of pleasure or pain.

Perhaps both, he thinks.

But Combeferre’s fingers continue to explore Joly’s body, trying to convey through touch what he cannot convey through words.

And he prays that somehow, some way, his beloved Joly receives the message.


	4. Enamour Me

Prouvaire wants to ask Joly out.

He’s wanted to ask him for weeks, months, probably years, but the timing was never quite right – one or both of them was always dating someone else, and Jehan was never the type of man to make a move on someone who was already in a relationship.

But now Joly is single, and Prouvaire wants to make his move.

The problem is he has no idea how to go about it. All of things that would work on him – flowers and poems and wooing by a lovelorn swain – are all things that would make Joly squirm.

“Get him drunk,” Grantaire advises.

“Wait for just the right moment and jump his bones,” Courfeyrac recommends.

“Appeal to his rational side,” Combeferre suggests. “Give him a list of reasons why you would be compatible.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, just fucking ask him,” Enjolras chimes in.

The words are just out of their leader’s mouth when Joly walks in, his messenger bag over his shoulder, and the group falls silent.

“What? What happened?” Joly asks, his brow furrowed and his eyes darting around the room.

Jehan rises from his seat and goes to stand before Joly, looking down at his feet, not daring to look at him, while the rest of the group resumes their conversation – or at least pretends to.

“Joly – I, well I—“ Prouvaire glances back at their friends, then back at Joly, swallowing hard. “I have the utmost admiration for you – I think you’re brilliant and funny and cute and I get the sense that you feel the same way, or maybe you don’t, in which case forget I said anything. I mean, don’t forget that I called you funny and cute, but — but I was wondering—“

“Yes, I’d love to go out with you,” Joly interrupts. “Dinner, tomorrow night?”

“Y-yes?” Jehan stammers.

“Great,” Joly says with his trademark smirk. “I’ll come by your place at 7:00, then.” He leans in and kisses Prouvaire on the cheek, whispering in his ear, “I thought you’d never ask.”


	5. Remember Me

Grantaire and Jehan both survived the fall of the barricade.

But Grantaire was the only one who remembered the barricade’s rise.

It was ironic, Grantaire thought, considering his survival was the result of an alcohol-induced blackout, the kind that plays tricks on the drinker’s memory. But when he regained consciousness, the cafe was filled with an acrid smoke and the bodies of his friends were laid out in a row on the stone floor downstairs.

He was taken into custody and questioned — but Grantaire could honestly say he knew nothing, so he was released. But as he was walking away, still in a daze, they stopped him and asked him if he could identify someone — a man they had captured who had a head injury that had rendered him incapable of even telling them his name.

Grantaire shrugged and agreed, knowing that everyone he knew and cared about was long dead but unwilling to further arouse the suspicion of the authorities. He walked in the room, expecting to see a face that was at best vaguely familiar.

Instead he saw his best friend.

They had all thought Prouvaire was dead, perishing on the wrong side of barricade days ago — but here he sat, pale and shaking in a hospital bed, his head bandaged and his body bruised.

And his memory was completely gone.

Grantaire walked over to him and stood beside him, taking his hand and waiting for him to smile broadly and make one of his typically florid pronouncements.

Instead, he said nothing, staring at Grantaire blankly through cloudy blue eyes.

Grantaire turned away, his stomach churning, unable to process what he saw.

His friend was here.

But his friend’s memory was gone.

And Grantaire would need to become his memory.

A few days later, he took Prouvaire back to his flat, settling him in his tiny bedroom and bringing him meals and changing his bandages. And for the next few weeks, he spent every spare hour trying to recreate Jehan’s life. He told him about his estranged family, showed him the poetry notebooks he kept, and regaled him with tales of Les Amis.  
Prouvaire would laugh — and sometimes, he would cry.

But he still could not remember.

Grantaire was feeling emotions he’d never felt before the barricades arose — he punched things in anger and wept in despair. Jehan was his only link to his friends, to his life before — and it was as if he’d never lived any of it.

Then, on an evening in early September, as twilight descended on the city and bathed the two men in its pale glow as they sat outdoors at a cafe, the look in Jehan’s eyes changed.

"You believe in nothing," Prouvaire said.

Before the barricades Grantaire would have scoffed at him — but today, he put down his wine glass and stared at his friend. “I’ve been told that before,” Grantaire says carefully.

"But you don’t really believe in nothing," Jehan said. "You believe in someone else."

"I did," Grantaire whispered. "But he’s gone now."

Prouvaire smiled — the first time in months that Grantaire had seen that familiar smile — and reached out and touched Grantaire’s hand. “But now,” he said, “You believe in me.”

"I always did," Grantaire said. "I loved Enjolras, but you—you were always there for me. You were the one who told me I wasn’t a worthless fool, the one who loved me no matter what. You were my best friend, Jehan."

There were tears in Prouvaire’s eyes as he spoke. “I remember.”

Grantaire reached out and touched his hand. “Finally,” he said, his voice choked with emotion.


End file.
